Early Forms of Ethnic Conflict in Cyprus: Archbishop Kyprianos of Cyprus and the War of Greek Independence 1821

Abstract

On 25 March 1821, the Greeks of Morea and the Aegean Islands triggered a revolt against their Ottoman rulers who had dominated and exploited their land and fellow countrymen
since 1453. The sultan viewed this uprising as a threat to order and discipline among the Christian subjects of his threatened Empire. The oecumenical patriarch Gregorios V and the
Cypriots were among the first to suffer the anger and repressive measures of the Porte. The persecution of the Cypriots began on 9 July 1821, and continued indiscriminately, on a large
scale, until December of the same year. This was a dark period for the Greek Cypriots. Many of them were massacred, their villages were burned, and some of them were sold into slavery
in the markets of the Orient.